Hundreds of parking tickets issued to drivers in ByWard Market parking garage this spring

New rules at the Clarence Street parking garage are catching drivers by surprise, leading to hundreds of parking tickets. CTV’s Tyler Fleming reports.

Hundreds of drivers have received a parking ticket at a popular city-operated parking garage in Ottawa’s ByWard Market since it shifted to a pay-and-display system this spring.

The city converted the parking garage at 70 Clarence Street to a three-hour pay-and-display system on March 30 to encourage vehicle turnover in the Ottawa tourist area. Previously, drivers received a ticket when entering the parking garage and were charged based on how long they stayed in the lot.

Bylaw Services tells CTV News Ottawa 962 tickets have been issued for parking violations in the parking garage at 70 Clarence Street since the end of March.

“During this time, there have been 27,861 transactions to purchase paid parking in the parking garage (March 30 to May 25), which indicates compliance in this parking garage is high,” Jake Gravelle, Chief of Bylaw and Regulatory Services, said in an email.

Resident Lise Larose-Norris says the new parking measures will make those parking in the ByWard Market “feel rushed.”

“We park here on a regular basis, once a week or maybe twice a week and we go and do our errands downtown, and we go for lunch and normally takes more than three hours,” she says.

“And now we have to run back before we go for lunch. It’s almost like they are trying to push everybody from Ottawa away and bring everybody from outside ... but if you go to the Parliament and things like that, there is not enough time. Another hour would be better.”

Some business owners say the time limit is working as intended.

‘It’s been crazy busy already and that’s why we put a lot of time into getting upstairs ready so we can actually have an additional 60 seats for our rooftop patio," says Alex Sirois, owner of Lowertown Brewery.

“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in customers coming in, and that’s a lot of what the market district authority is doing. It’s the change in parking, it’s the revitalization of the market, it’s the support from the city actually wanting the downtown core to be busy again, eliminating patio fees — all these things that are helping small businesses are really pushing us higher.”

The conversion of the lot at 70 Clarence Street to a three-hour pay-and-display system was one of the short-term measures in a $200 million plan to revitalize the ByWard Market approved by council this spring.

“As of March 30, the ByWard Market parking garage located at 70 Clarence Street transitioned to a three-hour Pay & Display system to better support the ByWard Market revitalization and increase the availability of short-term parking through turnover for residents and visitors of the Market,” Gravelle said.

“Bylaw and Regulatory Services (BLRS) officers issued warnings leading up to this change to allow the public time to become familiar with the new regulations.”

The parking lot is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the three-hour time limit is in effect Monday to Saturday between 8:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Here are the hourly rates to park at 70 Clarence Street.

Monday to Saturday (8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

• $4 per hour during the day, three-hour time limit

All evening/overnight periods (7:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m.)

• $3 per hour with an overnight maximum rate of $8

Sunday

• $3 per hour, three-hour time limit (7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The other city-operated municipal lot at 141 Clarence Street (the Dalhousie Garage) does not have a three-hour limit.

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